Peter Ainsworth: Surely what matters as much as the quantity of regulation is the quality, particularly where there is a potentially serious risk to human health. Given that we learned half an hour ago that, as with foot and mouth, the Government have failed to establish the cause of the outbreak of bird flu in Suffolk, is the Minister satisfied with the quality of the regulations dealing with importing poultry meat? Does he not agree that many people will be astonished—bearing in mind that there must have been a serious breach of bio-security at the Bernard Matthews plant—that under existing regulations nobody will he held responsible and instead the company concerned will receive £589,356.89 in compensation, funded by the taxpayer? Is it not time to look again at the regulations concerning the importation of poultry meat?

Sadiq Khan: I know that the hon. Gentleman is a big fan of the Office of Government Commerce and welcomed it as an innovation, but does he think that sufficient lessons are being learned? He said that he hopes that they have been learned, but Permanent Secretaries who come before us give the same excuses time and again, and do not learn the lessons. We hear Permanent Secretaries make the same points that they made when they gave evidence three, four or five months ago. Does he think that the OGC is doing a good job in that regard?

Edward Leigh: The creation of the OGC, particularly when it was under the inspired leadership of Mr. Gershon, is a welcome innovation of the Government's, and of course his work has influenced other aspects of government. The hon. Gentleman is quite right: we continually find that lessons appear not to have been learned, and although the OGC has an excellent remit and does good work, it lacks the ability to enforce its will in Whitehall. Perhaps it needs to be raised in the pecking order, so that we can ensure that the private sector knowledge that it has acquired is reflected in the public sector's saving money, particularly in procurement. I do not want to be a merchant of doom. I see that there are people sitting in the civil service Box in the Chamber, and I acknowledge that we have to pay tribute to them. The civil service has thousands of committed people of outstanding quality at all levels, and we try to pay tribute to them when we can, particularly to individuals, including those civil servants, who are often younger, who take on a particular project and deal with it over a number of years with great dedication.
	To turn to another key theme, I stress that those high-quality people have to work with low-quality information, poor systems and inadequate information technology. To come right up to date, yesterday we had before the Committee Mr. Ian Taylor, an interesting man. He has wide private sector procurement experience. Indeed, he is a past president of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, so he is at the top of his profession in the private sector. He is now director of the centre for procurement performance at the Department for Education and Skills, and I congratulate the Government on bringing in a man with a particular skill. He told us yesterday that in his view, public sector people are every bit as skilled as those in the private sector, but the information systems in the public sector are so bad that no private sector firm could afford to put up with them. They would simply go out of business. They do not provide the data that public sector leaders need to manage effectively or to develop robust strategies for delivery.
	In that context, the Home Office should step forward. The Committee has engaged in a persistent investigation of the Department's decision to release from prison foreign nationals, many imprisoned for ghastly offences, without giving any consideration to whether they should be deported. It is a well-known issue that cost the former Home Secretary his job. We revealed a Department entirely unaware of the scale and political sensitivity of the problem. The Department revised its calculations on that matter with such rapidity that we, and indeed the present Home Secretary, concluded that the Home Office staff were running around like headless chickens, unable to produce reliable information or a coherent response.
	At this point, I must pay tribute to one member of the Committee in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), without whom the picture may never have emerged. We greatly welcome his assiduous work on the Committee, even if he is a bit of an anorak; we forgive him for that. Perhaps the age of Lincolnshire cavaliers such as I must give way to the age of East Anglian roundheads in time. We are grateful for what my hon. Friend achieved. It was actually achieved on the back of one of the notes that I referred to earlier. There had been persistent delay in providing a note. We had asked for it again and again, and my hon. Friend, just a day before the hearing that the Permanent Secretary was due to attend, ensured that the note was delivered. The rest, as we know, is history.
	In the NHS, the Committee found that a lack of accurate information meant that no one had any realistic idea of how many people die each year in patient safety incidents. To compound that, nearly one quarter of incidents and a staggering 39 per cent. of near misses were simply not reported at all. We demanded that the National Patient Safety Agency make it simpler for trusts to report incidents and collect information on the factors that lead to death and serious harm in hospitals. Again, that is not some dry bean-counting exercise; it is about saving lives.
	Too often, Departments lack the basic capability to measure the things that matter and to learn from them, and to pioneer new approaches. When new approaches are introduced, they do not always take into account the complexities of delivery, and that is the subject that I next want to discuss. The Department for Work and Pensions contact centres are often staffed by people working on flexitime contracts. One might think, "What a sensible arrangement to save money," but of course it means that they are not available when most of the telephone calls come in. We have all been at the end of a call centre line. Because IT systems are not linked up, customers have to give related Departments and agencies the same information time and again, and it drives them crazy. That wastes time, duplicates effort and infuriates customers. There is an obvious principle here that cannot be expressed too often: when developing strategies, put the needs of the customer first. The public sector is run not for the public sector producer, but for us, the public.
	Reliable performance information is especially important when it comes to Government efficiency. We have had two hearings on the Government's efficiency programme in the past year, both of which highlighted how crucial it is to measure progress accurately. Our first hearing highlighted the important point that there is a lack of agreed baselines against which to compare progress, and there are weak systems of measurement and validation. Our second hearing identified the progress that the Government have made in improving the robustness of how gains are measured, but even so, over two thirds of reported efficiency gains still carry a significant risk of inaccuracy.
	There remain big opportunities to improve public sector efficiency. We are in a new era of politics. As the parties draw closer together, more scrutiny will shift from issues of ideology to the terrain of whether particular Departments are efficient, and to how much can be saved. The sums that can be saved are staggering. First, the public sector must aim to redirect resources to the front line. Hacking away at the complexity in the benefits system is one way to achieve that. My personal opinion is that we are far too reliant on means-tested benefits, which makes it impossible, year after year, for a Department to ensure that its accounts are accepted by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
	Secondly, as the Government are increasingly commissioning services, they must become a lot more commercially astute—we have already mentioned the OGC—and that will require a much better ability to manage contracts. Thirdly, we need to examine more closely how the Government estate is managed. That might sound a boring issue—how many debates are there on the Floor of the House about how the Government estate is managed? However, the potential savings are, again, enormous. We must include in any such study the potential for moving more civil servants to lower-cost locations beyond the Westminster village. We are often told that an agency or Department cannot move because it has to be close to Ministers, but how many civil servants ever actually meet Ministers? How many of them have to be in Westminster in central London, one of the most expensive places to locate in the world?
	Fourthly, there is a tendency for Government to become more complex. To combat that tendency, Government must work to rationalise functions that have been duplicated and to eliminate entirely those functions and bodies that are unnecessary. I have been encouraged by a number of developments since the Committee's hearings. The Government have promised that, in future, before they claim efficiency improvements—this is an important point—they will take into account how much they have spent to achieve those improvements. One might think that that is an obvious point, but it is now on the record. The Chief Secretary—and I welcome what he has done in this area—agreed to publish a breakdown of departmental performance, again, after we applied some pressure. I am sure that he was going to do it anyway, but we applied that pressure. That agreement will provide welcome transparency which, as we all know, is essential in measuring and analysing performance. We have a great deal to learn from the way in which the Office of Management and Budget and the Executive Office of the President in the United States ensure that there is complete transparency in all those areas to improve efficiency.
	Reliable information, too, is a prerequisite for sound financial management. The effective management of public money is the bedrock, as we know, of successful policy delivery. It is at the very core, too, of the Committee's work. That is another key theme: sound financial management should be straightforward, but many parts of Government simply cannot get it right. For instance, Government must collect the tax which is owed to them—a simple point—but due to financial mismanagement lots of revenue is not collected by HM Revenue and Customs. We found that not all information on VAT debt recorded on the main VAT computer system had been transferred to the so-called trader register. That may appear to be an obscure point, but it meant that some £900 million of debt failed to appear on the debt case management system. That is hardly a first-rate example of financial management by a department that should be at the forefront of such matters.
	We have discussed weak financial management, but "weak" is too kind a description of financial management in the Home Office, which somehow failed to reconcile its cash records with its bank statements. The manager of even the smallest corner shop knows that it is crucial to carry out such a basic reconciliation. At one point, the Home Office appeared to value the sum of all transactions going through it at £27 trillion—more than every single transaction in the world in the past year. That was the result of confusing the value of an invoice with an account code. Those people are entrusted with public money, but they apparently thought that the value of transactions going through the Home Office was £27 trillion. We are told that splitting the mismanaged Department into two is the answer—we will have to wait for the proof of that particular pudding.
	It is good news that the Government have acted to tackle weaknesses in EU financial management, and I pay tribute, again, to what the Chief Secretary is trying to achieve. Almost a year has passed since the Comptroller and Auditor General called on each member state to produce a consolidated account for all EU funds spent in that state. One would think that that was an absolutely basic point: why on earth should we not know how an EU state is spending EU money? I urged the Government to set an example by preparing such an account for the UK, as we had not done so before. The Government agreed, and they are developing that with the National Audit Office. I congratulate the Government on being at the forefront of that initiative, and we will watch the outcome with interest, as it may be the beginning of an era of much better management of EU money.
	I remain convinced that Government Departments and other public bodies must urgently improve their financial and commercial expertise. Thankfully, there has been progress in appointing commercial directors and professionally qualified finance directors, as recommended by the Committee on many occasions. Only yesterday, for instance, we looked at further education colleges, and we found that there was a worrying tendency for governing bodies not to be interested in procurement and for their business members not to be consulted. That is common, and virtually without drawing breath we could save £75 million that could go back into education. Audit committee members with business experience are increasingly involved in the work of Departments, but are those business members encouraged to influence the main areas of projects, programmes and measures? Despite the unarguable experience of many audit committee members in dealing with the strategic financial management issues with which some Departments are unable to come to terms, the extent to which those expert outsiders are welcomed to the hearth varies. The attitude that people with private sector experience should not be in the highest reaches of government is still too prevalent in Whitehall. That may be unfair, but we have encountered that tendency.
	Across the board, the Government appear to have introduced more initiatives, projects and programmes than they can effectively finance and implement at any given point in time. No doubt all Governments have been guilty of that, but we see it especially in the defence and health sectors, as well as in our road-building programme. In our last look at major projects in defence procurement, we were concerned about what was happening in that area. Yesterday, in his inimitable way, the Comptroller and Auditor General told me that to get quarts into pint pots individual projects are drip-fed with resources—again, I presume that has always been Whitehall's way—time frames are stretched; and specifications are changed. The first consequence is often delay but, as night follows day, cost increases follow project delays. Those are the findings of a man who has a lifetime of experience at the highest reaches of Whitehall. That creates a vicious spiral: overruns cost more; budgets run dry and projects can progress only when extra funds can be freed up; time lines are further stretched; and specifications are subject to revision and reduction. In the end, as the Committee sees again and again, Departments pay more for something; they get it later than they wanted; and it does not do all the things that they need it to do. That worrying picture, I am afraid, is frequently seen in Whitehall.
	The Government claim that efficiency savings will free up cash to spend on a host of valuable projects, and they produce anecdotes of isolated successes to cover up huge systemic failures. As we have made clear, however, they have massively overstated the savings that they have made to date. They still fall short of resources, and they continue to drip-feed and delay projects, winnow down their specifications and supply defective services to the citizens of this country. It is right for Departments to be ambitious in seeking to serve the taxpayer, but those ambitions, if they are to come to fruition, cannot but defy the iron constraints of Whitehall's defective capacity to deliver. I absolve Ministers of blame in many cases—they come, they go—but I repeat, if those ambitions are to come to fruition they cannot but defy the iron constraints of Whitehall's defective capacity to deliver and the Government's inability to fund all the programmes that they claim to be implementing.
	The Committee seeks to be a strong force for good by taking a balanced look at what is going wrong and identifying where improvements need to be made. We do criticise, but we also advise and commend. These observations are, I hope, valuable and constructive. I am able to make them only as the result of a great deal of hard work by members of the Committee. I should like to thank everyone who has left the Committee since the last debate: the hon. Members for Burnley (Kitty Ussher) and for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning). In their place, we welcome the hon. Members for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) and for Sittingbourne and Sheppey (Derek Wyatt), as well as my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne) I pay tribute, too, to the Committee staff, including those who have departed or joined since the last debate. Mr. Nick Wright was an excellent committee Clerk, and we greatly enjoyed working with him. We welcome from the Foreign Office—we forgive him that—Mr. Mark Etherton. I thank, too, Chris Randall, the Committee assistant, for all her support, and I welcome her replacement, Phil Jones.
	Of course, we thank Sir John Bourn and the National Audit Office, whose continuing support to the Committee is invaluable. Unbelievably, on average, the NAO publishes a value-for-money report every six days for us to consider, and its support above and beyond that greatly enhances the Committee's effectiveness. During the period of direct rule, the Committee dealt with the reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland, but luckily that responsibility, thank God, is now about to be taken away. It is not that we did not enjoy it, but we always thought that it should be done locally in Belfast by people on the ground.
	Our achievements were affected by other developments. In particular, I welcome the passage of the Companies Act 2006, which gives the Comptroller and Auditor General access rights to audit Government-owned companies. The Act was a long time in the making, but it is an important step. I should also highlight the Chancellor's request that the NAO work alongside the Better Regulation Executive to develop a process of external review.
	Unlike the Chancellor on another occasion, I shall resist making a final dramatic announcement—I am not sure that I have any power to do so, anyway. I shall therefore conclude my speech by saying simply that, with the coming comprehensive spending review, we face the probability of the Government's tightening their money belt; we know that. True efficiency and sound financial management will be ever more vital in those changing circumstances. As we approach our 150th birthday, I can confidently state that the Committee on Public Accounts will continue to approach our scrutiny of public spending with the unbending commitment that Mr. Gladstone would have expected of us. The Committee is more than strong enough to take on the challenge, and I commend its work to the House.

Paul Burstow: I begin by paying tribute to the work of the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office. They are the jewels in Parliament's ability to scrutinise the Executive and the Government. I was struck by the remarks of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) about the development of the NAO's work and its support for other Select Committees. As a former member of the Health Committee, I tell the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee that some of our work would have greatly benefited from input from the NAO. We all benefit from work such as the report on hospital- acquired infections and many other issues, which the Chairman mentioned.
	So many reports are outstanding—in both senses of the word—and are worth the House's time today. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who opened the debate, referred to the previous occasion when the House debated outstanding reports as a "graveyard slot." I fear that a Thursday so close to local elections almost gets into that category. Nevertheless, it is an opportunity for good quality contributions, such as those that have already been made, to draw attention to the work of the Committee and the NAO.
	I underline and echo comments not only about the value of the work of producing reports and making recommendations, but about the essential element of following up and ensuring that recommendations are acted upon. For example, the Committee has produced more than one report on hospital-acquired infections over the years and I am struck by the number of recommendations from the first report, which was published more than 10 years ago, that were not implemented. The NAO had to upbraid the Department of Health in its subsequent report of a couple of years ago. I await with interest further reports on the subject to ascertain whether substantive progress has occurred. I fear that much remains to be done.
	I want to concentrate briefly on three reports, which are on: the Norfolk and Norwich private finance initiative hospital; urban green space, and diet and exercise in prison.
	The Norfolk and Norwich PFI hospital is an astonishing example of Government miscalculation, perhaps even negligence. Indeed, the Chairman described it when opening the debate as taking the public sector for a ride. The Committee covered the refinancing of the Norfolk and Norwich PFI hospital in its 35th report in the last Session.
	The right hon. Member for Swansea, West mentioned the role of individual Members of Parliament in using the NAO to flag up issues that it evaluates and then pursues, if it sees fit, through inquiry. The NAO's investigation of the scandal that I am considering was in response, at least in part—a significant part—to referral by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) who, with others, rightly drew the matter to public attention.
	In 1998, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust let one of the first PFI contracts to a private sector consortium, Octagon. As one of the first examples of a PFI scheme, Norfolk and Norwich was something of a guinea pig. The trust might, therefore, reasonably have expected to experience the teething problems that are normally associated with new initiatives. However, it could not have expected that, in 2003—a mere two years after the completion of the hospital—Octagon would refinance the project, tripling the rate of return for its investors from 19 per cent. to a staggering 60 per cent. On the other hand, the Department of Health appears to have expected that to happen. In its response to the report, it states that the
	"potential for gains from a refinancing were recognised prior to the contract being signed".
	Indeed, it goes on to state that the policy at the time was not seek a share for the public sector partner
	"while the market was still so volatile".
	The Department did not want profit sharing in case it scared off potential investors. It feels as though the intention in trying to secure the implementation of this change in public policy and the financing of major capital undertakings was an attempt to grease the wheels to get the policy off the ground.

Paul Burstow: It says that the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office will be spending many years to come looking at these issues and their impact on the public purse, and at the burden that they will place on the taxpayer. It also says something about profiteering, which was certainly a hallmark of the early pathfinders in respect of PFI.
	In addition to the obvious short-sightedness involved in all this, such attitudes shows scant regard for the risks that were being faced by the public sector in these situations, not least in regard to the increasing emphasis in public health policy on being flexible and moving more services into the community. PFI locks NHS organisations into models and structures of care for many years while they are paying the debt costs involved.
	The trust secured the right to receive less than one third of the total gain from refinancing—just £34 million of the £116 million gained. In exchange for that, the minimum period of the PFI contract was increased by five years, and the trust faced having to pay up to £257 million more, in the event of early termination, than originally agreed. I really must question what kind of a deal that was. While Octagon walks away with the lion's share of the cash, the trust has been left to shoulder the burden of debt. This smacks of the worst kind of profiteering, and the fact that it was Government sanctioned is a disgrace. I am assured by my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk that the impact on the Norfolk health economy has been severe, and that the PCT now faces a £47 million deficit. No account has been taken of this in the Government's drive to balance the books in the NHS, yet it is a direct consequence of Government policy that the local NHS in Norfolk finds itself in this position.
	Some lessons have been learned. PFI contracts are now expected to include provision for the profits from refinancing to be shared equally between public and private sector partners. However, there are still grounds for concern. Does the NHS have the ability, or the Department of Health the will, to prevent such profiteering from happening again? If the Government are to avoid a repeat, NHS staff must be appropriately trained, supported and instructed in how to conclude deals of this kind. The Department of Health, in response to the Committee's recommendations, agrees with this proposition. It speaks of the need for staff to refer to the code of conduct and the application note, and to consult the refinancing taskforce. Codes, notes and taskforces are all very reassuring, but the Department goes on to say that staff in the trust
	"commissioned experienced advisers to assist them in reviewing the private sector's proposals, including the value for money of the refinancing".
	This leaves a simple question: if Norfolk and Norwich had assistance from experienced advisers, how did it end up agreeing to this deal? And if other trusts have only the benefit of this kind of assistance to rely on, how can we be sure that they, too, will not find themselves involved in such refinancing fiascos? The report acknowledges that the lot of public sector partners in PFI deals has improved as a result of what happened in Norfolk. Yet the adequacy of training and support for staff involved in these deals is still in question. The Department, and the Government as a whole, must ensure that these matters are addressed, if the taxpayer is not to be ripped off in future.
	I would like to turn to the issue of urban green space, an issue that was addressed by the Committee in its 58th report of the last Session. I represent a constituency on the outskirts of London, and this is an issue of real concern there. I have seen for myself the passions that a threat to treasured open space can provoke in my constituents. Surrey county council recently sought to grab control of the management of Nonsuch park, which is adjacent to my constituency. Since its joint acquisition in the 1930s by the Sutton and Epsom borough councils and the Surrey and London county councils, the park has been managed and paid for jointly by Sutton and Epsom. For 70 years, Surrey has taken no interest in it and made no contribution towards the running costs.
	Then, out of the blue, and without consulting residents, park users, local councillors—anyone, really—Surrey county council announced its intention to draw up plans for the park, including disposing of an historic house. A public outcry, the largest public demonstration that Surrey county councillors had seen in years, and a compelling legal and moral case forced a rethink. The sell-off plans have been dropped, but the unilateral action continues, and concern remains about Surrey's intentions.
	I refer to this local example because the report on urban green spaces highlights the importance of public engagement—something that had been lacking in the case of Nonsuch park. The Committee's report draws some interesting and alarming conclusions. In one in six of the areas assessed in the report, the quality of open space is declining. Sixty-five per cent. of authorities have not completed an audit of current green space provision, and 70 per cent. have made no assessment of future needs. Two thirds of authorities have not considered the needs of children and teenagers—a key demographic when considering planning green space and, indeed, when tackling issues such as antisocial behaviour and obesity.
	The report makes it clear that more must be done to target resources at the areas in most need. It also makes the point that the areas of greatest deprivation need green space the most, yet they often lack such facilities. There is a black hole in terms of provision and needs assessment. Planning policy guidance note 17 requires local authorities to plan for open space by undertaking assessments of both community need and current provision. However, the report found that, four years after the guidance was introduced, one in three urban authorities had not yet started to assess need, and one in five had yet to begin to audit current provision. Given that £700 million of public money went into green space provision in 2004-05, this lack of robust assessment should be a cause for concern.
	As I have already said, the involvement of local people in decisions about the provision of green space is crucial. Yet the report found that the needs of one group— children and young people—are
	"seldom well reflected in councils' green space priorities".
	The fact that the needs of this vital group are not even being addressed, let alone met, highlights a serious failure to engage. As the right hon. Member for Swansea, West has already pointed out, another recent Committee report, on childhood obesity, shows that the rate of obesity among children aged between two and 10 has risen from 9.9 per cent. 12 years ago to 13.4 per cent. in 2004. Save the Children, in two reports on "Child Wellbeing in the UK", identified the overall decline in the amount of available play space and freedom to play between 2002 and 2005 as a key concern. The Committee report speaks to that concern and demands more action. The decline of available play space and the increase in childhood obesity are far from coincidental. In the war against the childhood obesity, urban green space is a key battleground, yet the one group whose needs are not adequately addressed are young people.
	The report makes it clear that Government investment in green space provision has helped to halt the decline in the quality and quantity of urban green space. However, much of that money is being wasted because of inadequate targeting, planning and engagement with key groups. It is good to see that the Department responsible for these matters accepts those findings, but it will be a critical test to see whether it will translate that into action. It is critical to the health and well-being of local communities that the Government now act.
	Finally, I would like to turn to diet and exercise in prisons, which was addressed in the Committee's 56th report of the last Session and in a previous report in 1998. The question of diet and exercise in prisons is important, not simply because of our duty of care for those in prison, but because of the clear link between nutrition and behaviour. In 1997, a study was carried out on 231 prisoners at Aylesbury young offenders institution. It showed a statistically significant link between a nutritious diet for prisoners and a reduction in antisocial behaviour in prison. The study is now 10 years old, yet the Committee found that the Prison Service had not acted on the findings of the research. It was felt by the Prison Service that further research was needed, but no such research has yet been undertaken. A clear evidence base has been in existence for 10 years, yet nothing has been done. The Prison Service response to those findings is, to say the least, rather vague. It speaks of efforts that are being made to commission further research and bemoans the "complex and expensive nature" of the research. Unfortunately, that is far from the only example of the service's failure to act on the Committee's recommendations. Two other key recommendations made in its 1998 report have not yet been met by an alarmingly high number of prisons.
	In 1998, the Committee recommended that meals should be served within 45 minutes of cooking. Yet in 2006, 37 per cent.—more than a third—of the prisons visited by the National Audit Office failed to meet that recommendation.

Helen Goodman: It is a great please to take part in the debate, as indeed it is a great pleasure to serve on the Public Accounts Committee under the chairmanship of the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who fulfils his role not just with great energy, but with great good humour. I shall begin by addressing thematic points that are illustrated by several of the reports and then consider two or three reports on which we have played a fruitful and productive role in improving public services.
	My first point comes back to the original purpose for which the Committee was set up, which is to ensure that public money is properly used and that propriety is followed at all times. Two reports that we considered in the past 18 months demonstrate that it is still necessary to focus on that. The first was the 46th report, "Governance issues in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment" in Northern Ireland. It tells a bizarre and complex story, which I cannot possibly repeat, of a number of inappropriate relationships and a failure of the Government Department overseeing that body to ensure that there were no serious improprieties. The second report, "The joint venture between Dr. Foster and the Department of Health", was considered more recently. In that case, taxpayers' money was used to inject equity without a clear rationale or open competition. In both cases, family connections and a medieval approach to public money had taken hold. That is totally unacceptable. It is a very good thing that the NAO delved into those labyrinthine problems and that we can speak out on that important issue.
	My second point—which should be fairly straightforward to deal with, but clearly is not—is the simple issue of significant cost overruns. There are two recent examples of that. One is the road building programme, where there seems to be a systemic failure, with continuous increases in the region of 25 to 30 per cent., which is significant on a large capital programme. The other example, obviously, is the Olympics. The cost at the time of the initial bid was £3 billion; the latest estimate is £10.6 billion. When we took evidence, there was a great deal of confusion about what items of expenditure on the Olympics would be part of the legacy and what would be part of the two-week sporting event itself. Even taking account of the legacy, it was not clear that there would be value for money. For example, the officials said that there would be 4,000 homes, but there could have been 100,000 homes for the amount of money that is being spent. Altogether, it is a most unsatisfactory episode.
	One of the things that concerned me was the attitude of the officials. I felt that once they move into something in which the numbers are very large, they begin to lose sight of the principles at stake and to be ignorant of the issues at stake. I asked whether they knew and were satisfied with the cost of the temporary structures. They immediately realised that I would draw an analogy between those and Henry VIII's field of the cloth of gold, but they did not know that they were spending $240 million. The culture of irresponsibility should be looked at systematically.
	We need to consider two things to shift people's attitude and behaviour: the skill level and accountability. The British civil service has a number of important strengths, but delivery, practical implementation and management capacity do not generally rank among the greatest of them. Many of us have a feeling that there is not a high price for failure in terms of practical implementation and that there is an insensitivity to management realities and time scales. Obviously, the skills needed vary from Department to Department. The Foreign Office and Treasury are largely policy oriented, so a policy approach is perfectly sensible and effective. In the case of the Treasury, its delivery has been largely hived off to the Inland Revenue and the Bank of England. However, in many Departments delivery is the essential business of the Department. Policy is about delivery.
	Over the past 40 years, numerous attempts have been made to broaden the practical experience of senior civil servants. Generally they have not succeeded, for a very good reason: the world is too complex. When we expect people to know about giving policy advice to Ministers, being sensitive to political realities, and drafting legislation and steering it through the House, and also to know how to run large bureaucracies, we are expecting them to be good at two completely separate jobs. We need to get away from the idea that civil servants can be superbly gifted in every field. We can run a system of government on the basis of a cadre of able, intelligent, committed people, but we cannot run it on the basis of exceptionalism.
	It is interesting to note the instances when things seem to have worked well. When the Committee took evidence, I was struck by what had been achieved when vital technical skills were imported from specialist professions. There have been two success stories. The seventh report of the Session 2006—07, "Department for Work and Pensions: Using leaflets to communicate with the public about services and entitlements", might appear obscure, but it has a very interesting background. The Department took a broader look at its problems and, having encountered considerable difficulty in organising information on benefit entitlements, recruited a logistics expert from the Canadian army whose previous job had been directing United Nations operations in Sarajevo. There was a person who really could crack the problem. We recently produced a report on national health service food procurement, in which there had been numerous inefficiencies. The Department of Health had recruited someone from the financial sector, who had also had a significant impact.
	Departments need to build up skills within the civil service and the public sector. We recently considered their use of consultants, which was not a particularly happy experience. We concluded that although expertise was being brought in, we were not achieving very good value for money.
	I think that all the Committee's members have been probing the issue of whether particular groups working in the public sector should be paid significantly more than other mainstream civil servants. It is clearly a tricky issue for the Chief Secretary, because we do not want public sector pay to go rip-roaring off. Medical consultants are an example of that. A report published only yesterday shows that sometimes we are too generous. However, in other instances, because we underpay staff in the public sector, we buy in services from the private sector. That means paying not just for the people providing the services, but for profit margins, marketing and so forth, so that the whole exercise becomes much more expensive. It is quite pleasing that both the Office of Government Commerce and the Shareholder Executive, whose representatives we met recently, have said that they want to build up groups with, in particular, financial expertise to solve that problem.
	As I said earlier, I believe that accountability matters. On a number of occasions, weaknesses in accountability have led to overspends, inefficiencies and poor value for money. Obviously, there will be a problem if there is a long chain of command in a large organisation, but it strikes me as a basic, simple principle that in the public sector accountability should be to the public, either in their role as users of services or in their role as citizens. All chains of accountability should flow to them. However, we have seen too many instances when things do not work in that way.
	When we examined NHS deficits, the National Audit Office produced an amazing spaghetti junction-type diagram. The most alarming information was that foundation hospitals are accountable to Parliament. When I asked the officials how that was to be effected, they said "Through you". That filled me, at least, with horror, because I did not believe that we were capable of fulfilling such a role in respect of all the foundation hospitals in the country. The idea that the buck could stop with us in any systematic way struck me as rather unrealistic.
	For the fifth report of the Session 2006-07 we looked at a regulatory body, Postcomm. Under the structure that had been established, the industry would report to the regulator, who would then report to us. One of the problems that struck me as we took evidence was that Postcomm was not very sensitive to the needs of post users. It had not taken adequate account of the costs of lost or late mail, or of the needs of rural areas. Having decided on a strategy and introduced the market, it then proposed to consult the public. Again, we saw a weakness in the chain of accountability.
	A third example, mentioned by the hon. Member for Gainsborough, is the Rural Payments Agency, which failed to pay farmers their entitlements. The chief executive has been relieved of his position and there have been some ministerial changes, but we are bound to ask whether that was a reasonable response to the circumstances. Did responsibility for those failings lie at ministerial or official level? There is a case for saying that the English system was too complex in comparison with the Scottish and Welsh system and that the policy design fault lies with Ministers, but it is clear that there was also considerable incompetence at civil service level.
	Ministers cannot be expected to line-manage their staff in such detail. It is perfectly reasonable for Ministers arriving at a Department to assume that, by and large, the Department can either tell them that something is not possible, or deliver what it says is possible. If there is not that relationship between Ministers and officials, Ministers lack the levers that they need in order to implement policy. We need to strengthen ministerial control. In the name of neutrality, Ministers have been left with no leverage. For example, a Minister cannot ask a permanent secretary to leave if the relationship between them breaks down. That would not be tolerated in any part of the private sector. The chief executive of BP, for instance, was recently asked to leave by the chairman because the relationship was not functioning adequately.
	Another possibility is that we simply rely on professional standards. I am sorry that that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) is not present, because he alerted us to the different patterns in different parts of the public sector. If we assume that professionals are able to distinguish their personal interest from the public interest, we can use professional standards as a form of accountability. The report, "Progress in implementing clinical governance in primary care" found that the Department of Health used that system. There is no inspection of the doctors; their professionalism is relied on. We found that the standards of governance were directly related to the quality of patient experience, albeit more work needs to be done to improve both of them. That is in stark contrast to the situation in schools. We produced a controversial report, "Poorly performing schools"—the 59th report of the 2005-06 Session. Interestingly, the evidence was largely gleaned not by the National Audit Office but by Ofsted, the regulator. There is a completely different system of accountability in respect of schools.
	To summarise, I suggest that good policy delivery requires having the right skills in place, strengthening public accountability—partly through democratic structures and for citizens as well as consumers—and relying on both professional standards and independent inspection and regulation.
	I want to give some examples of where I think that the NAO and the Committee have helped to improve services and service delivery. The hon. Member for Gainsborough mentioned the inquiry into reducing brain damage by addressing stroke care—the 52nd report of the 2005-06 Session. That is a serious problem: it is the third biggest cause of death, and there are huge costs to the individual and the economy. Early action has a significant impact on outcomes. I was interested in the report as this is a significant health problem in County Durham, because of the health overhang from the heavy industrial work many people there did in the past and because of lifestyle. In my local hospital—Bishop Auckland general hospital—there is an excellent centre led by the consultant, Mr. Mehrzad. Last December, the local patient and public involvement forum held a one-day conference on stroke facilities in the area and stroke care. It brought together patients and practitioners and it used the PAC report as a basis. We now know that the Department of Health is taking this matter seriously and that they will prepare a proper strategy that will be produced later this year.
	Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), I was interested in the eighth report on tackling childhood obesity. Again, there was a delivery chain that looked like spaghetti junction; 27 agencies were involved in delivery. We took evidence from three Departments: the Department for Education and Skills, the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Department of Health has huge NHS costs that are projected to rise significantly, but in the DCMS and DFES this matter is not a priority, yet they are the Departments that have the policy levers. There has been a certain dilatoriness in respect of how the policy has been pursued. When we took evidence in May last year, the DFES permanent secretary was unaware that the extra money that it had provided was inadequate to equip school kitchens. Since then, great progress has been made. The School Food Trust under Prue Leith is tackling the problem.
	There is a similar problem in the DCMS. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West talked in detail about the proposed controls on television advertising which Ofcom will produce. Action was originally promised in 2004, and we were told that if voluntary action was not achieved by 2007 we would have legislation. That timetable has now been pushed back to 2008. It is becoming increasingly unlikely that the 2010 target will be achieved. In an interesting intervention, Stephen Carter—the previous head of Ofcom—wrote an article in the  Financial Times in which he straightforwardly admitted that it was not his first concern to regulate the broadcasting industry in the interests of public health. He said that if that is what Parliament wants, it should set things up differently. He said that his first concern was the broadcasting industry and its health. We need to think more clearly about how cross-Departmental efficiency is to be achieved. Members might wish to take a look at early-day motion 404 on controls on television food advertising to children and join with the 211 other colleagues who have agreed that they need toughening up; I commend doing so.
	If we are to be successful in fighting childhood obesity, we also need to look at non-broadcast promotions. Yet another structure has been set up to deal with that. The Committee of Advertising Practice looks at matters such as texting, posters and press advertisements. Which? has described the code that the CAP has produced as "woefully inadequate" and as
	"vague and open to interpretation."
	It wants there to be consistency between the non-broadcast code and the broadcast code, proper Food Standards Agency nutrient profiling and an approach that covers the whole under-16 age group.
	With another hat on, the DCMS is promoting sport and children's play as a solution to the problem. We have examined the Olympics. New evidence has come out suggesting that if we wanted to maximise the participation of children and young people in sport, it is highly unlikely that we would go about that by spending £10 billion on the Olympics. However, the DCMS was pleased to tell us of the £155 million that the national lottery is putting into children's play, and that is a positive new development. If Members want to ensure that the money for children's play is not siphoned off to the Olympics, as might also be threatened in respect of some other lottery moneys, they might like to attend the meeting of the all-party group on play next month, at which we will meet the lottery to discuss this issue.
	As the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) said, this matter is also related to the 58th report, "Enhancing urban green space". I take issue with one aspect of his remarks. I think that the story in this respect is basically a success story, as more than 90 per cent. of urban authorities have satisfaction levels of 60 per cent. However, he is right in that when we probed the Department for Communities and Local Government on the situation in respect of children, we found that their needs were not well understood. We found that two thirds of local authorities had not considered the needs of children and young people. The official who appeared before us used a wonderful expression—he said that thought was being given to consolidating parks and urban green spaces. He did not mean that they would be consolidated, of course, because how can anyone consolidate something that is two miles away from something else? What he meant by that was that lots of money will be spent on some of them to make them really nice and that builders will be allowed to have the others.
	That is of relevance to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Frank Dobson) found when he conducted a review of children's play, which is that what children really want is things that are local to them and that they can easily access so that they can go to them independently without their mums or dads. In that connection, we looked at interesting maps for antisocial behaviour. Again, it is a shame that my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby is not here, because he pointed out the striking contrast between Hull and Grimsby. The level of antisocial behaviour is much higher in Grimsby than in Hull, and he did not know why as both areas are very similar, sociologically. However, I can tell the House that Hull city council runs a very good play programme. It would be interesting if the NAO looked more widely, initially in London, to determine whether there are similar correlations around the country.
	I do not want to take up more than my fair share of time, so I shall conclude by saying something about the work that we did on the NAO report entitled "Gaining and Retaining a Job", which focused on the support for disabled people provided by the Department for Work and Pensions. The original report compared the broad range of schemes run by the DWP with the Remploy factory network. The Remploy factories fared extremely badly in the comparison. I was interested in that as I have a Remploy factory in Spennymoor in my constituency. I have talked to the people who work there, and I know that they value the factory very much. The NAO review found that £330 million is spent on getting disabled people back into work, of which £120 million goes to subsidising the Remploy factory. However, only 9,000 people work in those factories, compared with the 120,000 to 150,000 who access other schemes.
	At first blush, the Remploy factories seem to be 10 times more expensive than the other schemes, but two things became clear when we looked into the matter in more detail. First, we discovered that we were not comparing like with like. The Remploy factories get a full subsidy so that they can offer permanent jobs, whereas the other schemes offer small interventions with the aim of trying to help someone to find a job. Although it is possible that the job might be permanent, it is far more likely to be the sort of short-term employment that people with disabilities do not value nearly so much.
	Secondly, we were able to get to the bottom of the management costs problem that had aroused much conflict. The trade unions believed that the main problem was that management was wildly inflated, and that no other changes would be needed if that problem could be cracked. In contrast, management adopted a very defensive position. Our report was able to uncover some of the relevant facts. The House will know that there have been many changes in Remploy as a result of a ministerial review. This afternoon, the trade unions will publish a strategy document compiled by the accountants Grant Thornton. As I understand it, the strategy will enable most of the factories to stay open and to remain within the financial envelope that Ministers, quite reasonably, have set.
	That is an example of how the work done by the PAC, in respect of a very serious matter, has increased the level of facts available and reduced the amount of conflict. The PAC is sometimes critical of organisations or of how public funds are used, but I hope that the examples that I have given of how we have acted constructively demonstrate that the Committee is not against the public sector. We do not look at public sector organisations and say, "They've messed everything up. It's clear they can't manage anything and everything has to go to the private sector." The examples of how we have improved public sector efficiency demonstrate that it is possible to deliver better public service for all citizens.

John Healey: It is my privilege to respond on behalf of the Government to this debate, which has reflected the hallmarks of the Public Accounts Committee. Like the Committee, it was serious, wide-ranging, authoritative, sometimes highly critical, but at all times conscious of the need to be constructive and concerned to ensure that the Government are delivering services that are better value for money to the public. The debate was led in exemplary fashion by the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), who chairs the PAC, in a way that exemplified the qualities of his Committee.
	In many ways, Winston Churchill caught the way in which a confident Government should respond to the PAC when he said:
	"Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."
	Although Ministers may sometimes flinch or wince at the conclusions that the Committee draws—certainly, a PAC hearing is one of the least favourite appointments in any accounting officer's diary—the Government share many common aims with the PAC. In its 63rd report, which was published on the day in July when we last debated the PAC's work, the PAC said:
	"Providing high quality and cost effective public services is not easy."
	It said, too, that people
	"want public services that work. They want them to be easy to find out about, simple to use and responsive to their needs."
	The Committee's work is a valuable contribution to efforts to achieve that challenging task.
	May I pay formal tribute, too, to the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office? The PAC has high expectations of the NAO, which rises admirably to the task of meeting both the specific need of supporting the Committee's work and the wider needs of Parliament in holding the Executive to account. When we debated the PAC's work in July, I promised that the Company Law Reform Bill would extend the NAO's remit and reach. I can confirm to the House that, working in collaboration, the Treasury and the NAO have identified about 80 non-departmental public companies to which the Comptroller and Auditor General can be appointed as auditor when the Bill's provisions come into force in April next year, including Investors in People, the UK Film Council and the Student Loans Company.
	The NAO audits over 500 accounts, so that will be a significant addition to its workload. However, I know that the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff will work hard to ensure a smooth transition when the Bill's provisions come into force. In recent years, there has been a significant growth in the NAO and a very significant growth in the resources allocated to it. The £90 million budget for the NAO this year is almost double its budget in 2001. Oversight is the responsibility of the Public Accounts Commission, but we all look forward to the NAO achieving efficiency gains in the same way as the Executive are rightly expected to do.
	May I turn to the contributions to the debate before making some points about the Government initiatives in which the Public Accounts Committee is interested? I knew about the extraordinary experience of my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), but I did not know that he was a member of the PAC in the 1960s, before becoming a member of the Government. He concentrated on two reports, both of which he rightly said have the potential to achieve long-term benefits. He was concerned about childhood obesity, which is the subject of the Committee's eighth report. It is clear from the report and from his remarks that that is a complex issue and that the challenges are long-term. However, the strategy that is in place has started to produce results. I agree with a specific point that he put to me—it is wrong not to give parents the information that they need about their children's weight. I shall look into that for him, and ensure that he receives a reply. I shall take up, too, his concerns about the replacement requirements in the gas distribution network, and similarly ensure that he receives a response giving the Government's view about his concerns and about the risks for the future.
	May I welcome the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) to his first PAC debate as the Liberal Democrat spokesman? He dealt with the PAC's 35th, 56th and 58th reports, and brought to bear on them his established reputation and interest in social policy. He made some serious points about the report on prisoners' diet and exercise. I thought that we would be deflected by the interventions by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Bacon), just as the Committee's evidence-taking session last year was deflected. I am fortunate enough to receive the minutes of evidence, and the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) spent almost his entire allotted time for questioning exploring the nature of porridge and its place in the penal system. I had not realised, however, until the intervention by the hon. Member for South Norfolk that porridge helps the brain to release serotonin. In fact, I had not realised that there was such a thing as serotonin.
	More seriously, the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said that the two crucial questions are these: have the lessons from PAC reports been learned and, more to the point, has action been taken as a result of the assertion that lessons have been learned? I believe that the PAC's reports, including the ones that he mentioned, help Members of Parliament both independently and as members of departmental Select Committees to pursue the continuing concerns that the PAC has raised and therefore the answers to those two questions.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) rightly said that skills and, in particular, accountability are the hallmarks of good governance and good Government. She acknowledged that although the British civil service has many strengths, management capacity is not generally one of them. She spoke not only from her experience on the PAC but from her experience in the British civil service, so her comment is especially telling. She referred to five reports during her speech and drew the important conclusion that good public services and good delivery of those services depend on the right skills, strong democratic accountability and regular regulation and inspection.
	The Chairman of the Committee described the hon. Member for South Norfolk as "a bit of an anorak"—a soubriquet that the hon. Gentleman was happy to accept—and "an East Anglian roundhead". To be frank, I prefer the latter description, which is more swashbuckling and more in keeping with the energy that the hon. Gentleman brings to the PAC's work and to this afternoon's debate. The hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Mrs. Villiers), for Gainsborough and for Sutton and Cheam and my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) all paid tribute to the work of the hon. Member for South Norfolk in triggering the exposure and assessment of the problems in the Norfolk and Norwich hospital PFI project.
	The hon. Gentleman expressed general concern about transparency. I welcomed the recognition by the hon. Member for Gainsborough both in today's debate and in the Budget debate of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary's move to consolidate the breakdown of departmental performance in the efficiency programme. The hon. Gentleman described his comments in the Budget debate as a bouquet for the Government. We do not get many of those from the Opposition, so we are happy to accept that one.
	The other concern expressed by the hon. Member for South Norfolk centres on the publication of the conclusions of Office of Government Commerce gateway review processes. He made it clear that he has heard me explain the position before, so I shall not repeat that explanation. He knows the concerns about compromising the value and purpose of those reports and that process, but I confirm that I am considering the general approach to the release of information on gateway reviews.
	Given the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting about delay in the PAC receiving Treasury minutes, I can only hope that the minute dating from 1690 that could not be found is not one that the PAC is still waiting for, but has been mislaid. My hon. Friend is right to say that through its work the NAO has contributed to savings of millions of pounds. He is also right to draw attention to some of the wider issues in the 44th report, because although most attention was given to records about foreign prisoners and their release, the report set out some other important detailed concerns that set an agenda for the Home Office to pursue in future.
	The hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Dunne), who is new to the PAC, was unfortunately short of time to speak in the debate. I know the serious contribution that he has made to a succession of Finance Bills on which we have served together, and I am sure that he will make a valuable contribution as a member of the Committee.
	The hon. Member for Chipping Barnet caught the tone of the debate well. She talked about both good news and bad news. She talked more about bad news than about good news, but perhaps that is her job. She was right to conclude by commenting on the serious failure in the system of Home Office accounting which resulted in the accounts being disclaimed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. Progress has been made, as the Public Accounts Committee has acknowledged. Progress is being made not only on the accounting side but on the policy and delivery side.
	Let me turn to some of the initiatives that the Government have been taking that the PAC will be interested in. They are very much in line with looking for a more economic, effective and efficient delivery of public services. In the Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set out how the 2007 comprehensive spending review will build on the strengths of the public service agreement system to drive improvements in the areas that we regard as our policy priorities, while at the same time developing a framework for supporting performance management that enables a more user-focused and devolved approach to public service delivery. That will include each Department publishing at the CSR a new comprehensive set of strategic objectives that it will use to manage and report on performance and to inform resourcing decisions. Alongside a smaller set of cross-cutting public service agreements, those developments will allow a more coherent and better aligned framework for performance and financial management across the board.
	On better links between performance and financial management and monitoring, I have today informed the Treasury Committee that we in the Treasury intend to pilot combining the departmental report and resource accounts for 2006-07. At least one other Department—the Department of Trade and Industry—will participate in the same pilot. One of the main benefits that I expect is a reduction in the overlap of information and the confusing differences between estimated out-turn figures in the departmental report and actual out-turn figures in the resource accounts, which are published within a few weeks of each other. It will also lead to closer links between reporting on outputs and performance, on the one hand, and inputs and spend, on the other, with spending data being audited and hence more reliable. Our work in the Treasury on our 2006-07 annual report and accounts is on track for publication in early June.
	The hon. Member for Gainsborough dwelt on a specific concern that he described as the first of his four components of capable Government—financial management. For the past two years, with support from the PAC, a major drive has been under way to improve the professionalism of finance functions in Government. In passing, I should like to pay tribute to the work of the Treasury's finance director, Mary Keegan, who has led this work. I am pleased to be able to tell the House that as a result more than 90 per cent. of Government spend is now being overseen by professionally qualified finance directors, with additional work ongoing to strengthen financial skills across Whitehall.
	Competent Government and improving financial management is about more than just the finance function within a Department, however. Also critical are overall governance arrangements and the financial management capability of general managers throughout Government organisations. In the previous PAC debate in July, I was able to advise the House that a new learning facility to help managers in Government to improve their financial skills had just been launched. Today, I can confirm that access to this tool is being made available to all Members of Parliament; we can expect to find further details in  The House Magazine shortly.
	In his opening speech, the Chairman of the Committee referred to the value of departmental capability reviews. I welcome the way in which the review teams are working with Departments that have thus far been reviewed to offer practical support in following up the recommendations. I want to underline the fact that the Government take very seriously the lessons that are emerging from those capability reviews and see them as an important opportunity to improve service delivery.
	As Minister responsible for the Office of Government Commerce, I felt that the model of a capability review was so useful that I borrowed the discipline and built it into the reform plans that I set out in January in the document, "Transforming Government Procurement". The reforms that we are now pursuing are designed to deal with the two points that the hon. Member for Gainsborough urged on us, namely, that the Government need to become more commercially astute and that the OGC should be raised up the civil service pecking order. The plans for reform will achieve that. They are intended precisely to recognise that good procurement is essential to good public service delivery and good government as well as good value for money in both.
	I want briefly to consider the initiative that the UK has led in Europe on financial management and monitoring European spend. I am heartened by the PAC Chairman's response and that of others. If all member states work with their national audit institutions and Parliaments to improve their control and scrutiny of EU funds, we could make significant progress in getting a positive statement of assurance on the EU budget from the European Court of Auditors. The Netherlands and Denmark are taking a similar initiative to that of the UK and Sweden has said that it will do the same. In our annual White Paper on EU finances, which is due next month, we will present further information on the UK initiative.
	I said earlier that the PAC's work is not always comfortable for the Executive—it should not be. It is inevitable and right that the PAC's work focuses on things that have gone wrong, although it acknowledges examples of good practice, as we heard this afternoon. When things go wrong, the central challenge for the Government is to learn the clear lessons and act to ensure that things are better in future.
	I ended the debate in July with a quote from a Roman poet. That is the advantage of having such learned as well as skilled officials to support me as a Treasury Minister. Today, I should like to end with a quote from an American theologian, Tyron Edwards, who said:
	"Some of the best lessons we ever learn we learn from our mistakes and failures. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future".
	The PAC's work undoubtedly helps ensure that the Government can build success out of the lessons of the past.

Ben Bradshaw: I thank my right hon. Friend and congratulate him on initiating the work in the Department. I merely picked up the baton; he, more than anyone else, is owed the credit for the progress that we have made. As Members on both sides of the House know, he has a long and admirable record of fighting for the marine environment and for environmental issues more generally.
	My right hon. Friend put his finger on an important point about data. One of the challenges that we face in planning and managing the marine environment in an holistic way is that we do not know nearly as much about what goes on in that environment as about what happens on land. I assure my right hon. Friend, however, that mapping and planning work is already in progress. If we are to have a proper and credible marine spatial plan, we must know what is going on in the water and on the sea bed, and what features are where. The Government are firmly committed to that work.
	My right hon. Friend was also right to refer to the importance of joined-up working between the United Kingdom Government and the devolved Administrations. We have experienced good co-operation with the existing Administrations in both Edinburgh and Wales, and I only hope that that continues after the forthcoming elections. I am concerned that if certain parties—particularly in Scotland—do well in the elections, they might spend more time in wrangling about who has responsibility for what and where than in getting on with us and delivering this very important piece of legislation for the marine environment. I hope that all the voters in Scotland who care about the marine environment and who want something to be done—and who do not want this work to go into a quagmire of wrangles about the devolution settlement—are well aware of that; there are certainly thousands, and probably millions, of such voters in Scotland.
	This groundbreaking legislation will ensure that we are well placed to meet our international commitments, notably the implementation of the proposed European Union marine strategy directive and the forthcoming EU maritime policy. Most importantly, it will deliver a lasting legacy so that future generations will continue to benefit from a clean, healthy, productive and biologically diverse marine environment.
	The sustainable management of our marine environment is the second most important environmental challenge that the globe faces, after climate change. Because of the ocean's role in helping to regulate our climate, those two issues are intricately connected. I am therefore delighted that we have found time to debate this subject, and I look forward to listening to Members' contributions and to responding to them.

Robert Goodwill: My first encounter with the subject of the marine environment came when I was a farmer member of the Yorkshire Water consumer consultative committee in the 1980s. The big issue was long sea outfalls. Yorkshire Water decided that that was the solution to the problems of sewage disposal in coastal towns such as Scarborough. It was only because of campaigns by local environmental groups, such as the Sons of Neptune, that Yorkshire Water relented and put in more environmentally sustainable onshore sewage treatment facilities.
	The hon. Member for Reading, West (Martin Salter) raised the issue of what the previous, Conservative Government did. The bathing water directive and the nitrates directive were enacted under that Government. The bathing water directive has resulted in all those beaches with blue flags. The nitrates directive has attempted, at least, to cut down on the eutrophication that results in the algal blooms that can devastate our coastal resources.

Linda Gilroy: Like my hon. Friend the Minister, I represent a region that has 40 per cent. of the coastline of England. Plymouth has 450 marine scientists, the largest cluster in the UK, and there are 1,500 students studying 40 undergraduate courses with a marine theme at the university, which also offers 20 masters degree programmes.
	The university's marine institute focuses on coasts, estuaries and shelf sea systems, and it uses a hilltops-to-oceans approach in disciplines such as biogeochemistry, dynamic engineering and coastal change, marine biosciences and ecosystem dynamics, as well as marine policy and maritime affairs. Like many of my constituents, I was therefore delighted with our manifesto commitment that stated:
	"Through a Marine Act, we will introduce a new framework for the seas, based on marine spatial planning, that balances conservation, energy, and resource needs. To obtain best value from different uses of our valuable marine resources, we must maintain and protect the ecosystems on which they depend."
	Like many Members of all parties, I have been impatient to see a draft marine Bill, so I was pleased when the White Paper was published on 16 March, just a month ago. The marine Bill will be an international landmark. The European Commission is developing European marine thematic strategy and a Green Paper, and a draft marine strategy directive is under discussion. All that has happened since we set out on this path, and Britain has a chance to lead the way in Europe and in the world. So far, no other country has tried to develop a framework to manage the marine environment and economy. Such a framework is much needed, but it must strike what is a challenging balance between environmental protection and social and economic needs.
	Getting the balance right presents significant challenges, and nowhere is that better appreciated than in Plymouth. Not only are we a centre of excellence in marine science—as my hon. Friend the Minister saw on his recent visit—we also have a busy naval and commercial port and first-class marine sport and leisure facilities. Recently, HMS Scylla was placed on the sea bed to form an artificial reef, and Plymouth also boasts shipbuilding and repair facilities. There is an intense interest in renewable energy, and there are plans to develop a wave hub off the Cornish Cost. That will be a focal point for realising the potential of what would be an important contribution to the energy sector.
	Plymouth has the fastest growing fish market in Europe. Modern facilities and an electronic auction system allow fishermen to obtain the best value for their diverse catches. We have marine scientists in Plymouth who work closely with all those sectors to help them meet the many challenges that we face. Plymouth Marine Laboratories, under the leadership of Professor Nick Owen, has developed a number of spin-off companies, and has a track record in observational research and monitoring. There are exciting examples. Many hon. Members will have seen the photo bio-reactor capable of growing micro-algae, capturing carbon dioxide and then harvesting micro-algae to give us biofuel.
	A few weeks ago I was pleased to accompany my hon. Friend the Minister on a visit to see some of that work as well as to see the fish market and the National Marine Aquarium. The day before yesterday I was equally pleased to welcome colleagues, including my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner) who made an important contribution earlier and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) who is hoping to make a contribution shortly, to launch the marine science inquiry into the oceans and to visit several key laboratories. There were awareness seminars led by Plymouth scientists, Dr. Chris Reid, Professor Steve Hawkins, Professor Laurence Mee and Professor Nick Owen, with short presentations on the big picture of marine science and technology, monitoring the oceans and trends in climate change, biodiversity and bio resources from the oceans, and the sustainable management of our oceans. Other hon. Members have set out the case for issues covered in the White Paper, which was published last month.
	We had a seminar held in public with an invited audience, including local school and university students. I was particularly pleased that it was held at the National Marine Aquarium. It has acquired a well-deserved reputation as a science centre as well as a tourist destination. It combines fun and learning and is every bit as important as museums. One of our proudest achievements has been to restore free entry to museums. I suggest that Ministers look at support for science centres, such as the National Marine Aquarium. I first visited the Marine Biological Association when I was a 10-year-old and it cost a matter of pence. To go to the National Marine Aquarium it costs a family £27, including VAT. A first step would be to reduce VAT to a minimum. That would be worth £250,000 to the NMA. We could proceed by giving an entitlement to each child to visit and perhaps a discount to parents. School and university students should have a free pass, at least at off-peak times, to science centres covering the oceans. There are 80 science centres throughout the United Kingdom.
	I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will make a careful note of that and perhaps get behind the campaign around which I shortly hope to gather Members from both sides of the House. That has a close link with the strategic goals set out in the White Paper. They include to promote public awareness, to promote understanding and an appreciation of the value of the marine environment and to see active public participation in the development of new policies. It also suggests that we should increase our understanding of the marine environment, its natural processes, our cultural marine heritage and the impact of human activities on them.
	The White Paper confirms the Government's decision to create the new marine management organisation to carry out the functions outlined in the White Paper, which will materialise in the Bill. I welcome that. It will come as no surprise to the Minister that I have taken a close look at the proposals set out in Chapter 8. They envisage that the new organisation will be a centre of marine expertise, will provide a consistent and unified approach, will deliver and improve co-ordination of information and data and will reduce administrative burdens. The integration proposed will provide benefits from joined-up delivery and economies of scale that could not be realised by placing those functions in separate organisations. It will need a professional and proactive marine manager trusted by all stakeholders to contribute to the sustainable development of the marine area. The MMO will be charged with developing forward-looking marine plans, which others have mentioned, and with providing a sound framework for the sort of decision-making within streamlined licensing regimes mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead). It will be charged with expert marine fisheries management, proportionate nature conservation and the effective, fair and consistent enforcement of regulation.
	I do not expect the Minister to respond to this today, but it will come as no surprise to him when I say that in looking for a base for the proposed new MMO he should look no further than Plymouth. Plymouth has experience in all the areas of responsibility that we have been talking about today. We have a regional development agency that gives very high priority to environmental and spatial strategy issues. As my hon. Friend the Minister knows, its strap line for everything is "Its in our nature". Plymouth has a university that is commanding growing respect and reputation as an engine house of scientific research and knowledge transfer as well as learning. Its city council has ambitions for Plymouth, which it is realising through the Mackay vision for the built environment but, more important, in planning terms it has a local development framework which is well ahead of the field, is recognised for its excellence and has received awards. Plymouth has an economic development plan that envisages the development of marine, health industry, science and engineering as key strands of our economic development to be carried forward by a new city development company.
	We also have a chamber of commerce led by Mr. Mike Leece, who received an OBE for his services to marine and shipping matters. He delivered the National Marine Aquarium and was formerly head of the company running our naval dockyard. What greater centre of expertise could one hope to look for?
	I have been proud, for three years running, to host exhibitions in the Upper Waiting Hall. The first was in 2005 on that Mackay vision. In 2006, Plymouth marine science and engineering was celebrated and in 2007 many hon. Members will have visited the exhibition entitled, "The Oceans and Climate Change" developed by Plymouth Marine Laboratories and other members of the newly formed partnership. I can conclude on no better note than saying to my hon. Friend the Minister that I hope that in the not-too-distant future I will be able to apply to host an exhibition of the new Plymouth-based marine management organisation as champion and custodian of our unique UK marine environment.

John Randall: It is a delight to be taking part in this debate, although I have to say that for a Thursday afternoon there has been a little bit of curmudgeonliness on both sides and some party political barracking, but I put that down to the season.
	There was some discussion about previous legislation. On page 123 of this excellent White Paper hon. Members may care to note some of the out-of-date and redundant fisheries legislation, which attracted my eye. It includes the White Herring Fisheries Act 1771—sounds like a bit of a winner. The Seal Fishery (North Pacific) Act 1895, which was obviously superseded by the Seal Fisheries (North Pacific) Act 1912. It was
	"An Act to make such provisions with respect to the prohibition of catching seals and sea otters in certain parts of the Pacific Ocean, and for the enforcement of such prohibitions as are necessary to carry out a Convention between His Majesty the King, the United States of America, the Emperor of Japan and the Emperor of All the Russias."
	So I do not think that the House has been inactive in this sort of legislation.
	I would have liked to say that I had a small part in marine legislation, but unfortunately the Marine Wildlife Conservation Bill (failed) was defeated down the other end, as it happened, in the other place. When I introduced that private Member's Bill I thought perhaps rather naively as a relatively new Member that it was a simple idea to replicate in a marine environment the protection that we have on land for sites of special scientific interest. How wrong I was. I then realised how complex the marine environment in all senses of the word really is, all the different competing interests and activities that go on in it, the different Departments that have responsibility for it and so on. I got a flavour of the conflicts that were possible between Departments as each tried to promote the best interests of the areas they represented. I am sure that that continues. Although many of us think that the proposals are late in arriving, I appreciate the amount of work carried out by DEFRA on producing the White Paper.
	We all agree on the importance of our seas and oceans in every respect, and realise that the marine environment can no longer be seen as a dustbin or an inexhaustible supply of resources, especially fish. Sustainability is the key and we cannot endlessly pillage those resources. The Minister and others have mentioned the Government's work on cetaceans such as whales and dolphins, and I pay tribute to the Minister and his two predecessors for that. The Ministers dealing with those matters have had much sincerity, although I do not for one minute suggest that Ministers with other responsibilities do not have the same degree of sincerity. However, I always have the impression that Environment Ministers are keen to get things done.
	In discussion of these matters, those of us who do not have a coastal constituency are sometimes regarded as second-class citizens. When I introduced my private Member's Bill, even the  Hillingdon Times said, "Saving the marine environment—in Uxbridge?" as if that was an awful thing and a waste of the Member for Uxbridge's time. However, we all care about the marine environment; whales and dolphins are a classic example. They are not cuddly animals, but on a list of animals regarded as—

Andrew Rosindell: I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to speak up for man's best friend, and to bring the issue of dog welfare before the House once again. Hon. Members will know of my long-standing interest in dog issues. Since my election as a member of Parliament, I have had the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated groups and organisations in the country, who perform a magnificent job in defending the interests of our four-legged friends.
	I pay particular tribute to the Kennel Club, whose work in the dog world goes far beyond the call of duty, extending from welfare issues to dog shows, breeding and, of course, the Westminster dog of the year competition. The Dogs Trust has also campaigned on dog welfare-related issues to ensure a safe and happy future for caninekind, and has made the slogan "A dog is for life, not just for Christmas" a household phrase. The Dogs Trust will
	"never put a healthy dog down"—
	the popular motto that inspires so many people to sponsor its wonderful re-homing programme. Battersea Dogs and Cats Home is another organisation that does miraculous work in looking after dogs that have been cast out by cruel and irresponsible people.
	I also pay tribute to a friend of mine, Juliette Glass of the Fury Defence Fund, who has been a personal inspiration to me. She is always there with an open ear and friendly advice for people all over the country with problems in the dog world. Juliette has helped to save many dogs from immediate death following the unwise implementation of the draconian Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 before its amendment.
	There is another organisation known as "Vets Get Scanning", whose patrons include Bruce Forsyth and his daughter Debbie Matthews. It seeks to promote the practice of microchipping all puppies as a matter of routine and procedure, and the practice of scanning every dog that enters any veterinary surgery anywhere in the United Kingdom. Why, Members will ask, is such a practice so necessary and important? It will probably come as a surprise to them, as it did to me, to learn that dog theft is one of the fastest-growing criminal activities in the United Kingdom. The crime targets the natural bond that exists between owner and pet—a bond that in many cases is as strong as the bond between family members. These vile criminals will seek to exploit the natural affinity between man and his best friend, either by kidnapping the dog and holding it to ransom—as happened recently to the pop artist and singer Lily Allen—or, as happens in many thefts, by stealing the pet to sell on to unscrupulous breeders or those willing to pay exorbitant amounts for a particularly rare breed of dog. If the ransom is not paid or the dogs cannot be sold on, they will often be killed and discarded.
	It is hoped that promoting the simple practice of scanning a dog when it enters a veterinary surgery will cause authenticity of ownership to form an effective barrier and deterrent to those who might enter into the crime of dog theft, whether it be the criminal who steals the dog or the unscrupulous breeder or others who may buy the animal from the criminal. The "Vets Get Scanning" scheme is helping to eradicate that evil activity. I commend its work to the House and hope that the Minister will consider working with it to make the scanning of all dogs whenever they enter a veterinary surgery a routine practice.
	As many Members will be aware, for many years I have owned Staffordshire bull terriers. As any owner of a Staffie will confirm, they are magnificent family animals that epitomise the phrase, "Man's best friend". They are caring, loyal and gentle animals, which in recent times have sadly endured a bad press owing to the deplorable treatment of a minority of owners.  [Interruption.] I am delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) is sitting beside me. He has informed me that Watchman is the name of the dog that is the mascot of the most excellent Staffordshire Regiment. Indeed, the Staffordshire bull terrier has an historic place in terms of that regiment, the county of Staffordshire and the whole of the United Kingdom.
	Many Members will know that Spike was my first Staffie. He wore his own made-to-measure Union flag waistcoat and stood by me during every step of my political career, campaigning in my first two parliamentary campaigns: in 1992 during which he tirelessly trudged through the streets of the glorious constituency of Glasgow, Provan, including the Blackhill estate—an area that Mr. Speaker will know well, as it is in his constituency—and then in Thurrock in 1997, before seeing me safely into the House of Commons in 2001 with a thumping majority. Of course, Spike's proudest moment, as the Minister will know, was when he greeted the noble Baroness Thatcher as she arrived at Romford market two days prior to the 2001 general election. Having done his duty, Spike passed away on St. George's day 2002.
	My current Staffordshire bull terrier, Buster, has taken over working as Britain's "top campaigning dog", an accolade he was awarded in last October's Westminster dog of the year competition. He also met Baroness Thatcher in Romford just before the 2005 general election, wearing his Cross of St. George waistcoat, and on Saturday Buster will once again be by my side as we campaign in Romford market to make St. George's day a public holiday in England. Spike and Buster have truly represented the British bulldog spirit, which I passionately share.
	However, dogs are not just household pets. They are deeply significant in the everyday lives of many human beings, as guide dogs for the blind and hearing dogs for the deaf, as dogs for the disabled and visiting dogs for hospitals, and for therapy, too, bringing relief, joy and happiness to the sick and infirm. What other creatures could provide so much companionship to the elderly and the lonely? Dogs serve the police and the customs service as sniffer dogs, and they also work in mountain rescue, where they perform a vital task. They play an enormously significant role in the lives of all of us.
	When I last spoke about dog welfare in the House, I covered the effects of the terrible injustice on certain breeds of dog that followed the introduction of the Dangerous Dogs Act. I do not intend to dwell on the matter again this evening, but I feel that it should be stated once more that in all matters to do with the actions of dogs it is the deed and not the breed that should be acknowledged. As I have said before, there are no problem breeds, just a handful of problem owners. We should never lose sight of the fact that any dog in the wrong hands can be as dangerous as any weapon. Any dog can be trained to fight, bite and attack on command, and that is something that needs to be addressed. People who use dogs for such violent purposes are obviously sadistic and evil. Although we in the House cannot police their behaviour, we can do our part to make it as difficult as possible to train animals for that purpose.
	I hope that we can start by outlawing electric shock collars. The Animals (Electric Shock Collars) Bill ran out of parliamentary time in 2003, but the Kennel Club has worked tirelessly since then to get that product banned. According to a report from the Kennel Club that I received recently, the electric shock collars administer a static shock to a dog that does not do what is asked of it. In that way, they train a dog to respond out of fear of further punishment rather its natural willingness to obey. For a collar to serve efficiently as a training tool, the dog has to perceive the shock as painful. Moreover, if it does not respond, the punishment has to escalate, which creates further potential for abuse and cruelty. An angry or inferior trainer, or even a novice owner, could therefore misuse a shock collar to abuse or punish.
	The product is readily available—via mail order, retail outlets and, of course, the internet. Anyone can get an electric shock collar. As there is no training or supervision, people can put one in place and administer so-called "correctional" treatment. Ultimately, however, such devices do not address a dog's underlying behavioural problems, so the cause of its barking or aggression remains suppressed. Indeed, the collars are quite likely to cause further behavioural problems in the future.
	The primary purpose of any training programme should be to improve the relationship and communication between a dog and its owner through compassionate, reward-based training. Other, more positive training tools and methods can produce dogs that are trained just as quickly and reliably, if not more so, with absolutely no fear, pain, or potential damage to the relationship between dog and handler. Given that those alternatives are available, I hope that the Minister will agree that there is no need for electric shock collars.
	I come now to the issue of dog breeding and, in particular, to the training methods needed to educate people purchasing puppies. Educating puppy buyers and raising their expectations is a powerful tool to help eradicate puppy farming, while rewarding and promoting breeders who follow basic good practice will help to raise standards. The Kennel Club's accredited breeder scheme was launched in 2004 and is working towards both of those ends. The club has joined forces with interested welfare bodies to establish a working group to identify ways to tackle puppy farmers. That is a long-term, ongoing project. There is a widely held view that a Kennel Club registration certificate puts a premium on a puppy. The club's online puppy sales register is a valuable aid to breeders wishing to sell their puppies. In addition, it is raising its profile and that of its major show, Crufts, with the aim of becoming the first port of call for all canine matters.
	Finally, I should like to say something about greyhound racing. As the chairman of the all-party parliamentary greyhound group, I declare a keen interest in this matter. I am fortunate enough to have a splendid greyhound stadium in my Romford constituency that plays regular host to many significant events in the greyhound calendar. However, one very significant problem with greyhound racing is that some unscrupulous owners destroy their dogs when they cannot run any more. Personally, I find it incomprehensible that anyone who works with animals could destroy a dog simply because its running days are over.
	The rules of the National Greyhound Racing Club seek to ensure that owners are responsible for the future of their greyhounds at the conclusion of their racing careers. Greyhound racing is enormous fun, but those who take part must also consider the welfare of the dog during and after its racing days. I commend the magnificent efforts of the Romford retired greyhound association based in my constituency. It is doing wonderful work rehousing greyhounds at the end of their racing days. Many such organisations exist throughout the country and I pay tribute to them all for their magnificent work.
	To conclude, I should like to seek one or two assurances from the Minister. First, will he assure me that the Government will not seek to introduce dog legislation without proper consultation with the main dog organisations and charities? Secondly, will the Government seek to form stronger relationships with dog-related groups, giving support where it is needed? Thirdly, will the Government seriously review laws already on the statute book, some of the limitations of which I highlighted earlier in my speech and previously on the Floor of the House?
	All hon. Members have thousands of dog owners in their constituency and still more dog lovers. Let us this day properly acknowledge the special place that dogs have and will always have within our society as man's best friend, and the best friend that man is ever likely to have.